


warmth

by adhdmollymauk



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining, Other, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-05-02 23:39:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14556093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adhdmollymauk/pseuds/adhdmollymauk
Summary: Carefully, he brings an arm around Molly's waist, pressing closer, and Molly hums softly and pulls him in. He feels warm, and not just from the natural warmth of tiefling skin; it's something deeper, right in his chest, that makes the buzzing feeling fade to just warmth and comfort and makes his breath catch. He's trying not to think too hard about it, but he knows deep down that with the others this feeling wouldn't be there. It'd be comfort, sure, but not this overwhelming knot in his chest, trying to form words that he knows he can't say.Caleb has a bad sensory overload day. Molly somehow knows just what he needs.





	warmth

**Author's Note:**

> not gonna take up tag space with this but: caleb is super definitely autistic, molly has adhd and is nb as hell, i love projecting my own feelings onto fictional characters when i am sad, please enjoy this cheesy bullshit.

Caleb takes first watch. He knows he won't be able to get to sleep anyway; today has been too much, too fast, and there's an uncomfortable buzz under his skin, a feeling of wrongness that makes even the brush of grass against his hand unbearable. The noise of crowds still rings distantly in his ears, even though they've been at camp and away from the busy streets for over an hour now. He runs an absent hand over the bandage on his shoulder, a reminder of their fight that afternoon; the fabric, which hadn't been a problem earlier, is now so irritating he wants to rip it off. Frumpkin curls up on his lap, summoned by an unconscious thought, and he buries a hand in soft fur and hopes it will be enough to calm him.

He realizes he's shaking, or maybe shivering--it's a chilly late fall night and he's far enough from the fire that he feels the cold. Frumpkin's warm body and weight on his lap helps a little, but his hand shakes too much to copy over any spells, and he's still too wired to concentrate on reading. He glances over toward Nott and smiles when he sees her curled against Jester, using warm tiefling skin as a heating pad. Next to them Beau snores loudly on her back, an arm thrown across the other girls and her head pillowed uncomfortably on her pack. He observes the rest of them: Yasha, leaning against a rock, sword in hand like a lifeline; Fjord, curled into himself by the fire, brow furrowed; and Mollymauk--who's still awake, he realizes, idly shuffling tarot cards. The noise is slight enough that he hadn't noticed it over the crackling of the fire.

Red eyes meet his, and Caleb is caught by their beauty for a moment--the flames dance across them, but despite Caleb's wariness for fire, this one feels warm and inviting. He kicks himself. He's stared too long, and eye contact feels wrong and uncomfortable even on the best of days. He catches Molly's smile as he looks away, lopsided, fangs poking out over his bottom lip. Focus on something else, he tells himself, and stares at Frumpkin instead, trying to trace the patterns of his fur.

"You all right?"

It takes him a moment to look up, but the voice is unmistakably Molly's, and unmistakably close. He looks at the winding feathers of Molly's tattoo instead of his eyes, this time, and tries to keep his voice from shaking.

"Just tired."

"Caleb, you're shivering." There's so much concern in his voice, all the teasing and games and flirtations he uses as a shield thrown aside. Caleb knows how much he cares for all of them, but it's still so disarming to be hit with the full force of it. He's not used to being cared about like this, not really.

Before he can stammer out some excuse, make Molly stop worrying about him and _caring_ , he feels a weight over his shoulders and blinks: it's Molly's ridiculous gaudy coat, gently laid over him like a blanket. Surprisingly, it helps a lot. The fabric is heavy, grounding, and the lining's silken texture is smooth under his hands, erasing some of the buzzing under his skin.

"Thank you," he says, and means it. He doesn't know what else to say.

"Today got overwhelming, yeah?" And Caleb realizes that somehow he understands this feeling that's been making him blink back tears all night.

"Yes. The... crowds, and the fighting--"

"No downtime, either," Molly says. He's sitting close but not in Caleb's space, leaning back on his hands. Tentatively, Caleb brushes a hand across the grass too and breathes a sigh of relief when he finds he can touch it again.

"How did you know this would help?" Caleb says, lifting a sleeve of the ridiculous coat and gesturing aimlessly with it.

Molly laughs, soft and lilting, and says "Helps me, so I figured. It's the weight."

Caleb nods. "And the lining."

"Yeah. Touch helps me, too, but I know that's not so much your thing."

Caleb considers it for a moment. Sometimes, when he's like this, he can't bear to be touched, even by Nott, who usually breaks all the boundaries he has for himself. Today, he's still shivering a little, maybe from the cold as well as the overstimulation, and he thinks maybe touch wouldn't be so bad. Wordlessly, he shifts closer to Molly, close enough that he can feel his body heat. The proximity puts a different kind of feeling under his skin, one he can't explain, but it makes him want to be near Mollymauk so badly it almost hurts.

"You sure?" Molly says, so soft he can barely hear it, and he nods. He's getting comfortable with all of them, and he thinks this would be okay with almost anyone--except Yasha, probably, who wouldn't want to do this in the first place. He and Yasha barely speak, but they have an understanding: they're alike, in some way that he can't explain. And even though Mollymauk puts on a front, drapes himself in beauty and puts on airs so that strangers underestimate him and find him charming, somehow he's like them too. But more than that, this isn't the first time he's felt like this. He's drawn to Molly, not in the way that strangers are, but something deeper: the person underneath, who's chosen who he wants to be. Molly is beautiful, of course, sometimes so much so that it hurts to look at him, but he's also kind and open and sometimes the most levelheaded one of the group, and sometimes he gets so excited about things that he bounces around like a child at their first fair, tail waving like Frumpkin's when he sees a bird.

He's so caught up in thinking about this feeling and all the things that Molly is that he almost doesn't notice when an arm settles around his shoulders, still barely touching him, asking for permission. His body buzzes from the contact, but it's the different feeling again, so strong he thinks Molly is going to see the light pouring out from under his skin. He takes a deep breath, steadying himself, and lets himself ask for more.

It's amazing that he's allowed to do this. He still doesn't feel like he's allowed to do this, with any of them, even though Jester is almost always hanging off another member of the party, Beau casually ruffles her friends' hair, even Fjord is known for giving the best hugs. He's coming to learn that when it's with the right people, he really likes touch, but it's terrifying to ask for it, let himself be vulnerable to someone else. Only Nott is immune, hugging him or riding on his shoulders whenever she likes. He wants that with all of them: not all the time, but enough.

Carefully, he brings an arm around Molly's waist, pressing closer, and Molly hums softly and pulls him in. He feels warm, and not just from the natural warmth of tiefling skin; it's something deeper, right in his chest, that makes the buzzing feeling fade to just warmth and comfort and makes his breath catch. He's trying not to think too hard about it, but he knows deep down that with the others this feeling wouldn't be there. It'd be comfort, sure, but not this overwhelming knot in his chest, trying to form words that he knows he can't say.

Molly's hand is tracing absent patterns over his shoulder, and the touch makes everything else fade away. He wants more, he wants this to never stop, and it scares him less than it should. His watch shift is almost over and he feels anxiety stab at his stomach at the thought of losing this. Frumpkin has moved to sit with Molly, without Caleb noticing, and Molly lets out a surprised laugh when the little cat starts to knead at his legs.

"He likes you," Caleb says. _I like you too._

"He's a good boy, aren't you?" Frumpkin makes a happy little sound as Molly brings his free hand to scratch behind his ears. He curls himself into a little ball, purring, and Caleb realizes that Molly's tail has wrapped itself around his waist, possibly without him noticing he's done it. It's painfully endearing.

He presses closer, leaning his head into Molly's shoulder. There are only a few more minutes left of this before Yasha takes watch, and he's going to make the most of them. Molly's tail wraps itself tighter around him, and he definitely isn't doing it on purpose: Caleb watches him notice it a second later, when he feels a piercing snag on a loose thread in Caleb's coat, and his eyes go wide.

"Sorry--" he says, sounding actually flustered, and Caleb wonders what the _hell_ that means. His tail pulls away, lashing nervously, and Caleb wants to press a kiss to the tattoo on his neck. Oh gods, Caleb has been wanting to kiss him all night, and he's only just noticed. You absolute idiot, he tells himself, and instantly dismisses the thought that Mollymauk Tealeaf might actually want to kiss him back. He settles for taking Molly's free hand.

It's terrifying, for whatever ridiculous reason, but he's rewarded with a genuine smile and Molly's thumb tracing patterns over his knuckles. When he has to get up to wake Yasha, he lets go of Molly's hand last, pulling him up from the ground and holding on for as long as he can.

"Caleb?" Molly says before he gets too far, and he looks tentative. There's something in his face that Caleb can't quite place, and then he says, "I'm gonna try to sleep if you want to. Come by after." He jerks his chin in Yasha's direction and then at where he's placed his bedroll, raising an eyebrow in a way that should be suggestive but looks almost shy.

"Yeah," Caleb says, and he can barely get the word out past the knot in his chest, and Yasha looks between him and Molly and smiles, and he feels like something has shifted but he's missed the memo on what.

Molly's set up a spot for himself a little removed from the rest of camp, his things in a haphazard pile that he's currently placing his jewelry on top of. Caleb shrugs off his coat and hands it back to him, wordlessly, and Molly's smile is soft and he brushes their hands together just a little bit more than necessary as he takes it back.

Caleb still doesn't know what this is but he wants more than anything to touch Molly again. A barrier has been broken and he's allowed-- _Molly's_ allowed, more than that, because Molly is like this with everyone except him, until now. He's seen Molly curled up with Yasha, Jester, even hold Fjord when he has a nightmare: he's tactile, and a humanoid space heater, and this means nothing.

Everything comes crashing down as soon as he's lying down, and he feels the last of whatever makes him scared to be vulnerable crumble away as utter exhaustion hits and all he wants is warmth and that feeling again. He practically throws himself at Molly, burying his face in his chest, and he feels the vibration of a surprised laugh.

"You're adorable when you're tired, you know that?" Molly says into his hair, and Caleb tries to remember that it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean anything, and neither does the soft kiss on the top of his head, or the way Molly tangles their legs together and wraps Caleb up in his tail, anchoring them together. But it feels safe, and right, and Caleb just barely brushes a kiss against his collarbone before he's dreaming of warmth.

Molly is still there when he wakes up. Caleb has somehow shifted in his sleep so that he's basically lying on top of him, face pillowed between his neck and shoulder and an arm wrapped behind his head that's starting to go numb. Molly's arms are wrapped around him still, one hand warm on his back under the fabric of his shirt. He realizes that Frumpkin has curled himself in right next to them, stretched out long against Molly's hip with his head resting on Caleb's arm, and sighs. Clearly he won't be moving for a while.

It only takes a few minutes for Molly to awaken, but it's enough for Caleb to memorize every inch of him, every sensation of this moment. It's a hushed kind of limbo, and he's scared the spell is going to break, that Molly will somehow be mad at him and that this will never happen again and--

"Mm, good morning," and his breath catches at Molly's half-asleep smile. He wants this, again, to wake up with him, and he maybe even wants it forever, and his heart pounds so loudly he thinks everyone can hear it.

"Damn, we're gonna be stuck here for a while," he's saying, looking over at the blissed-out cat next to them, and then Caleb's mental processes freeze as Molly starts to run a hand through his hair. "This okay?" he says, and Caleb makes a sort of affirmative noise because he kind of never wants it to stop.

"That was the best night's sleep I've had in ages, honestly. We'll have to start doing this every night," Molly says and Caleb can't tell if he's joking or teasing or flirting in the meaningless way he does or if he's actually serious.

"Yeah?" he mumbles noncommittally, grateful that Molly can't see his face. His skin is almost too warm, but Caleb presses into it anyway, feeling the long line of a scar against his cheek.

"Mm. Only if you kiss me again, though, that was nice."

Okay, this is a dream. A dream and not real. His whole body is frozen for a moment, spinning through thoughts, trying to remember if he'd actually done that, and with a twist of anxiety he remembers he did, in his bullshit sleep-addled state, and then he registers that Molly is not mad at him and in fact wants him to do it again.

"What," he breathes, and Molly's hand stills in his hair, tenses with worry.

"Sorry, I thought--Did I freak you out?"

"No, I. Freaked myself out, I think," Caleb says, and he doesn't know what he's saying or what's happening or how.

"Caleb?"

"Yeah?"

"I really like you, you know."

He's still waiting for the other shoe to drop, for this to turn out to be a practical joke or a dream or an illusion, and so far it hasn't happened. Why hasn't it happened.

"I kind of thought I was being obvious, but. I know I've got a bit of a flirtatious personality and maybe you didn't pick up on it--"

"Wait, you've been flirting with me? Like, in all seriousness?" Caleb disentangles himself with some difficulty so he can see Molly's face, and it looks perfectly earnest. What the fuck.

"Well, yes? But I really don't want to mess this up and I know you need time and all that--" He trails off. Caleb is smiling, tentatively, and he doesn't know what he looks like but Mollymauk is looking at him like he's something beautiful, and somehow he has managed to make Molly flustered, of all people. He wants more than anything to do it again. 

Molly is still lying on his back below him, and it's the easiest thing in the world to lean down and kiss him. It's barely a moment; he shies away after their lips touch, afraid he's somehow done something wrong, but Molly is smiling, pulls their foreheads together, and he lets himself try to relax.

"Do that again?" Molly says, still smiling like Caleb is the only other thing in the world, and he does.

**Author's Note:**

> the doc for this is titled "how do i have so many wips" so, yes, i am planning to write more stuff for this fandom and have literally 2 separate pieces half done rn. please help me.
> 
> yell with me about catlike tieflings on [tumblr](http://adhdmollymauk.tumblr.com/)


End file.
